Education
Santiago Canyon College Science Center
HVAC for a new community college science building.
Client
Rancho Santiago Community College District
Location
Orange, CA
Service Line
HVAC and building automation for a 62,000 SF college science building — lab airflow and fume-hood controls calibrated hood by hood.
Client: Santiago Canyon College / Seville Construction Services
Location: Orange, CA
Service Line: HVAC & Building Automation (multiple-prime)
In 2002, Orange County voters passed Measure E, a $337 million bond to modernize the Rancho Santiago Community College District — new classrooms, renovated buildings, and room to grow at Santa Ana College, Santiago Canyon College, and the district’s regional centers. Santiago Canyon College, one of the fastest-growing community colleges in the country at more than 20,000 students, put part of that toward a new science building. The college and Seville Construction Services brought Athena in for the HVAC and building automation.
The 62,000-square-foot Science Center pairs lecture halls and faculty offices with working labs for chemistry, biology, microbiology, zoology, geology, physics, mathematics, and astronomy. Delivered as a multiple-prime contract, our scope covered the mechanical and the controls behind all of it. We installed the new equipment end to end: McQuay rooftop air handlers, chillers, mechanical piping and valves, and all the associated ducting.
The labs are where it got exacting.
The labs are where it got exacting. A teaching lab full of fume hoods lives and dies on airflow — pull too little and the hood won’t contain, pull too much and you’re wasting conditioned air and fighting the room. We built the laboratory airflow control system so every valve was field-detailed and calibrated to its own fume hood, with the fume-hood controls integrated into the building automation. Each hood holds its face velocity; the room holds its balance.
Client: Santiago Canyon College (Rancho Santiago Community College District). Construction / Program Management: Seville Construction Services. General Contractor: Angeles Contractor, Inc. Architect: LPA. Mechanical Engineer: tk1sc. Funding: Measure E (2002 general obligation bond).
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